


like the canyon

by psymyn



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining Gavin Reed, Soft Upgraded Connor | RK900, Touch-Starved Gavin Reed, and i adore my adjectives lads, gav has some issues and nines will hold him through them all, i have fun with grammar and commas, like... yeah, lotta hurt but also lotta comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 14:26:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20931713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psymyn/pseuds/psymyn
Summary: “I wish you could see yourself how I see you.”Out before he can catch it, before he can bite down and choke himself with it. “How do you see me?” Broken voice, quiet in the back of his throat, lowered eyes. Hiding from an answer.Not sure he wants to hear the truth.





	like the canyon

**Author's Note:**

> tw for brief mentions of v*mit, nothing graphic but it's referenced a few times, and plenty of harsh self-deprecation if that sets you off
> 
> this is just a vent fic, and purely self-indulgent, but you may enjoy it. i've had a bit of a rough week and needed a release. don't think gav deserves to take on all my shit (and at his birthday too, aw) but here we are. an update for ask me why should be here next sunday (or earlier if it's done before then). sorry if you were expecting that today
> 
> i listened solely to mother mother during the entirety of writing this, if you want something to listen to as well. they truly encompass my recent bizarre headspace. title is from their song happy

Gavin is keeping track of the bruise.

It’s on the front of his right leg, a complete hand-length down from the line of his hip, high enough to focus his attention. It’s off center in every way, edging to the outside of his thigh only slightly, a small oval. He covers it with his thumb and presses down as hard as he can, and it doesn’t hurt as much as he wishes it would.

He likes the purple-yellow mark, splotchy and distinct. Healing, though, and he’ll watch the colors fade back into the rough of his skin with a reluctance that he will do nothing about.

Finding it first in the shower, in the early morning after a night in the cargo hold of a dry docked ship, gun and flashlight up in the empty dark. A lone attempt at chasing after an impulsive addict who had tremendously enjoyed shoving the both of them through the broken catwalk railing and onto the metal floor below. Gavin had slid the cloth along the line of orange rust at his stomach, soap and water rinsing it away, when the bruise had caught his eye. Larger than it is currently, already spotting up in dark blues and blacks. Pressing against it then had bloomed an intense, dull throbbing that made him grit his teeth and hold his thumb there until tears pricked his eyes and fell in with the cooling shower stream.

Now, Gavin just releases the pressure and breathes deep at the white-stretched skin blurring back to the natural tan. He pulls his shorts down enough to hide the mark and doubles down with tugging his comforter back over himself as well. It’s warm still from sleep, a welcome he does not intend to leave.

It’s noon. Or, just past. Though he wants to force himself back into the relief of a dreamless ink, his eyelids won’t allow it. Shaking no matter how much he holds them closed, opening on their own with his body’s will to wake. It’s fucking exhausting. He lays on his side with one arm propping his head up from under the pillow and the other folded on the mattress in front of him, hand a limp curl. Gavin doesn’t do much but stare at the window across from him, the blinds shut closed and angled down. Alternating lines of shadow and a daylight that tries valiantly to illuminate his room, his room that has not seen the lamps switched on for much time now. Only the fan remains on, spinning at the second highest speed despite it being the start of February, despite the thermostat reading 67, despite the layers of cover he keeps atop hisself.

He has kept to a similar vein for the last two days now, the unassuming Tuesday and the familiar Wednesday, living these amaranthine hours in either a haze or simple, tempting unconsciousness.

The empty pangs of hunger have dissipated, an indifference remaining in their place. Only on the first morning did he attempt to eat anything, bran cereal poured to half the bowl. Swallowing any more than one bite had left him feeling nauseous and overheated, and he’d ended up just spooning the soy milk into his mouth until all that was left was a soggy pile at the bottom of his trash. Thirty-seven minutes later found him kneeling around his toilet until all that came up was stomach bile, the painful dry heaves along with it. The porcelain was cold against his forehead and his throat had felt like sandpaper.

Water, he’s stuck to since then. He can do that much.

Gavin doesn’t recognize time passing until his phone vibrates somewhere on the bed, and he’s fortunate enough to sweep his hand under the sheets and find the cold of the device immediately. Or perhaps he’s unfortunate, the caller ID lets him know.

How can he justify having the energy to answer for his boss, his mother, an unknown telemarketing number, but nothing at all for the only fucking person he actually _ wants _ to talk to? Gavin watches the screen continue to prompt him into answering ‘bde #9’ until it times out and he’s left staring at his lock screen. A recent change to a picture taken three weeks ago, of said ‘bde #9’ crouched down at the mouth of the alley near Gavin’s apartment complex, palm outstretched to a curious, mangy tomcat. Clean white numbers remind him he’s once again missed the last few hours.

14:57 turns to 14:58 before the screen times out.

Nines has attempted to contact him twice before now. A single phone call on each day, but nothing further. Gavin doesn’t even know if he’s grateful for the space or resentful for being left to dwell in his own mental filth alone, but he does know that he cannot bring himself to talk over the line. It’s too much, too much effort, too much here and now. Too fucking much. Everything is too _ much. _

Gavin isn’t expecting his phone to vibrate once more so soon, a short double buzz with an incoming message, and his vision is heavy and watery. He sniffs and wipes under his eyes with one hand until he can read again.

_ bde #9: I know there are times you do not wish to interact with others, but it has been three days. I need to make sure you are alright. _

He reads over the words until he understands them, until he drops the phone to the carpet, off the side of the bed, and leaves the message as it is. Unanswered and waiting with its face at a brick wall, screaming.

It’s practically a cry for help. Gavin knows that his partner, his _ friend _ (and the title does not fit in his mouth, in his brain, where the thought of anyone holding the intelligence of an entire network in their dumb fucking head should therefore conclude that he is not a piece worth any concern— where _ that _ thought takes center stage), will not enjoy being ignored through the one mean of communication that Gavin has promised to uphold. An agreement, a simple check-in. If Gavin cannot bring himself to tap out a short _ i’m okay, _ then he requires an intervention.

But, he will ignore the world for as long as he can, and that includes every person that wishes he wouldn’t. Gavin deserves to spiral down.

Without a distraction he blends back into the haze broken only by his sticky dry mouth forcing him to reach for the flat, plastic-tinged water from the days old bottle at his bedside. He doesn’t know if he ever truly slips into an unnecessary sleep, but he seems to reside in that purgatory of sentience with eyes finally willing to shut only until noises somewhere outside the closed door of his bedroom have his ears perking.

A door, keys on a counter, puttering, a thud, footsteps heading down the hall, closer, louder—

Soft knuckle knocks behind him, one two three and the squeaky knob turns on its own. A conjured company that intends to watch over him, perhaps.

His waking dream is attempting to soothe, a cool palm carving its way at the back of his neck, through the ends of his hair curling with sweat. The dream says, “Detective,” and he has never been able to imagine that voice so clearly, so accurately, so—

“Gavin.”

Gavin opens his eyes slow, letting fading daylight and hollow pain and a sure presence tell him of reality. Awake, back turned to the call of his name. He pulls the comforter closer over himself and the hand falls away.

Nines says, “I’ve been worried.”

He doesn’t want to see him, doesn’t turn to face him. “Why?”

“Have you left this bed at all?”

_ “Why?” _ and his voice breaks and cracks and scratches out into the air. His eyes burn.

Silence for just a second. The shadow of the tree right outside his window, backlit by dull orange, is still, covers his eyes and lets him watch the dust float in the beams of light. “You know I try to respect your boundaries, but at what point do I step past them to make sure you are not like this?”

“Like what?” A disappointment, a washout, a disgrace, a—

“You don’t believe you deserve my concern, though I’ve mentioned twenty-three times now how much you’re worth to me,” Nines says in that perfect matter-of-fact way, and it draws the first laugh from Gavin in many, many hours. It’s just a breath or two of amusement, a sigh of humor, smile absent. His heart hurts.

“Will you look at me?”

Gavin doesn’t think he can. “No,” he mumbles, and curls further forward, half on his stomach.

He hears Nines sigh, a tiny moment of true chagrin. Then, “When is the last time you ate?”

“Um. Tuesday,” he says, and does not think it at all important to add that he had kept none of it down, that he had been left feeling emptier than before. He knows it’s bad enough to admit foregoing trying to stomach anything stronger than water for days now, he doesn’t need to mention anything further than that.

Gavin hears no reply for a long time, the whir of his ceiling fan the only sound in the room, and when he sits up just barely, just to finally, curiously, look over his shoulder, there is nobody there. No careful hands, no dumb turtleneck, no blue _ yellow _ ** _red_ ** LED, he doesn’t know which color he <strike>wants</strike> expected. He’s deep enough in the numbing dwell to have absolutely no way to discern if he hallucinated the whole thing, if the entire conversation was his mere pathetic mind. If maybe now is the time to get up and out of his own dross and be a human being for once, you absolute fucking waste. You _ waste. _

No, he thinks, what’s more probable is that Nines was here, in a moment brief enough to finally accept the fact that no matter what angle he approaches this from, Gavin cannot be helped. He’s just a nuisance, eternally. A fucking stain amongst his colleagues, an irritant to his captain, and a woeful pest, burden, inconvenience to his partner.

Yes. That sits better in his mind, aligned with his views. Of course.

A psychologist would call it major depressive disorder; psychologists _ have _ called it major depressive disorder, to his face, at his own request. In a small office with a silly stupid little checklist in front of them with everything but the very last bullet marked positive. Gavin only needed to show five out of the nine symptoms to be diagnosed, to be gifted with the charge, and he thinks eight out of nine isn’t half bad. Almost an A, he’d have to show his parents, get it hung on the fridge for the world to see.

Go and brag about it.

No matter which way he lays against the pillows his neck hurts, cricks in every tendon. Comfortable is purely an idea now. He’s restlessly stable, wanting to find a better position but stubbornly, indifferently refusing to move a muscle. Hell of a cognitive dissonance.

Only vaguely does Gavin wonder about the precinct, the cases he left open, whether or not anyone but his partner notices his absence. Fowler doesn’t count, the man thinks he’s down with the flu, Gavin has enough sick days saved up to put them to good use here. He’s no use on the field in such a careless state of mind, wouldn’t be able to tell someone was murdered even if they had a knife in their chest and the back of their head blown out. A dangerous sort of detective he’d be, caring for nothing and overlooking everything.

Fuck. He flops onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes, quelling the thoughts best he can.

It feels like seconds, could be hours, days, _ weeks, _ where Gavin sits in the trenches before someone opens his door for the second time. He doesn’t have time to remind himself he doesn’t want to see anyone before instinctively lifting his arm to look. And it _ is _ Nines, his partner (unchangeable), his friend (undeserved), striding in without fanfare. His LED is yellow, stagnantly so, but blinks blue twice in succession when he meets Gavin’s eyes. The android gives him a small, olive branch of a smile.

“Are you feeling any warmer?”

He frowns, makes a questioning noise in lieu of using his words.

“I made sure to turn the heat on before I left,” Nines says, and confirms that the maybe-not of a hallucination earlier definitely was not so. “Your apartment was unusually cool for the middle of winter, and your body temperature had been 1.96 degrees lower than average. Unsafe, if I may say.”

Gavin blinks in the wake of information he didn’t ask for, not having a suitable response. He focuses elsewhere. “How did you get in here?”

“The front door.” Gavin isn’t in the mood, doesn’t have the energy to bicker or banter or whatever the fuck, and Nines seems to grasp that after he’s met only with a tired stare. “You do remember leaving a key under your mat, I hope. May I?” The last he gestures to the foot of the bed, and Gavin shrugs his apathy toward it.

Nines sits down with his hands flat to his knees, not stiff but more in an effort to stop himself from reaching out, and faces him. One leg on the mattress, Gavin notices he’s not wearing any shoes, only socks. Solid navy.

“Don’t remember saying you could just walk in whenever you like,” he says, grouches, resting one hand behind his head to talk without staring at the ceiling. It’s a misdirect, truly, for Gavin had placed the key there for that very reason.

“Well it was certainly a better option than breaking your door down,” Nines says. A little crease in between his eyebrows, Gavin can’t see his LED from this side. “I knocked four times, and then called you six more times when I received no reply, not even one of you yelling at me to get lost.”

Gavin averts his eyes from the ones that twine into his anima. “I was asleep,” he says, a half-truth. He had not heard any of what Nines claims, though maybe if his concentration laid more in the present then they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Nines decides not to address it further, ostensibly. “Would you be willing to eat something?” he asks instead.

As if in a curse his empty stomach makes itself known, returns full force with a terrible pain that he had been deluded enough to block out. And it’s pure pain, no immediate nausea, so he nods. Then, quickly, an afterthought, “I don’t— I don’t think I have anything. To…” Gavin leaves the sentence hanging there, unfinished inaptly. He knows what he means to say, it’s all there in his head, right in his fucking Broca, but he just cannot seem to articulate any of it. An aftereffect of it all, naturally.

Fortunately Nines (ever resolved, composed, and sometimes Gavin wishes he could be the type to ever know how that feels) understands. Always does. “You didn’t, but I went and bought some things you should be able to tolerate.”

Gavin opens his mouth to say something more, along the lines of _ you didn’t have to _ and _ you shouldn’t feel obligated _ and _ you are the best thing in my life, _ but is stopped before he can utter a single sound. Nines rests a heavy hand on his ankle, through the comforter and Gavin wishes the fabric were gone, that nothing be between the touch, and squeezes once before he stands again.

Impossibly, the room is larger and colder and hollow with Nines’ short departure. For how much Gavin had wanted to keep alone, to be so feels horribly pyrrhic, even in the liminal minutes before the android returns.

“Can you sit up for me, Gavin?”

He does, pushing up with shaking hands until he rests back against the headboard, already lightheaded from the simple movements. Nines has a bowl with him, and Gavin swears if this is soup or cereal he’s going to shove it away and retch, but Nines takes a seat back on the bed and he sees that no, it’s neither. Vanilla ice cream, already half-melted into that soft swirl, an easy endeavor.

Gavin frowns. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

“I know that,” Nines says, patient, not defensive, never with him, god he’s so— “It’s Lactaid.” When Gavin says nothing further, and doesn’t move to take it, he continues, “You need the calories, and something cool you can keep down, and this will soothe your throat. I’m not leaving until it’s gone.”

Nines’ care is misplaced, misguided, wrong. It’s off center in every way. Gavin pushes his thumb down into that bruise, has done it enough times now to find it blindly through sheets and shorts, and feels nothing.

“Fine,” he relents, and takes the spoon.

  


His partner stays, after that. It’s late into the night and Gavin is as awake as ever, circadian never a word his body will be familiar with, but at least he is no longer alone.

Nines takes him into his hands. Tells him to shower off the limp greasy hair and stale grime from his skin, brush the fuzz out of his mouth, pull on clean and dry and loose clothes. Gavin does, and when he comes back into the room to change he glances over the bed bare of sheets and covers and feels his ears heat. Nines should not think it his responsibility to wash away Gavin’s troubles. Nines should—

Nines.

Is here, somewhere, grabbing Gavin by the nape of the neck and pulling him right out of the shitty headspace he’s occupied for the better part of three days now. Once again. Not for the first time. Certainly not for the last, either.

He already feels just that much lighter, clean and awake and standing. Something in his stomach he didn’t immediately gag against. The dingy bed, his one area of dragging warmth, stripped away from him. No longer an option, a forced withdrawal from Gavin’s disconsolate conscious.

It’s good. But.

It’s… not disheartening, no. Daunting, perhaps, fulfilling his avoidant attachments, to want competing experiences. An oxymoronic life.

Gavin finds a yellow ring of persistent worry in the weak light of his living room corner lamp, on the couch before Nines sees him and it blinks blue _ again, _ longer and calmer but not remaining. Something familiar. A guilt taps on the inside of his sternum with one thin claw at the fact; he doesn’t wish to be the cause of such thoughts.

Nevertheless.

They don’t need to say much, have gone through this song and one-foot-apart dance more than enough times for Gavin to know to just crawl onto the couch beside Nines and wait for him to remotely turn on the television and ask what he would like to watch.

(A distraction, Nines had called it the first time, when Gavin had locked himself away from the world for thirteen hours. Not long by any means, nothing he would call a relapse back into the fog, but enough for his partner to stick his inquisitive, prying, concerned nose into things and fuck everything up.)

(By which he means, of course—)

“I have, um, I-I have something recorded,” Gavin says when the question comes, and he stares at the screen moving through menus until old 00’s opening credits start to roll over his nostalgia.

Nines never minds what plays, is content to be a solid presence beside him. Beside him here meaning an entire arms length away from him, polite. He routinely chooses to claim the left end of the couch, leaning an elbow on the arm of it, hands in his lap, and Gavin never ceases being jittery and anxious about the distance.

He hears his washing machine running behind him, reminding.

“Thank you.” It’s small, nearly an empty mouthing of the words, but he knows Nines hears him. He’s not ungrateful, has sense enough to address not only this occurrence but every one that came before and every one that will come after.

Nines hums out a simple acknowledgement, has learned not to say _ you don’t need to thank me _ or _ this isn’t a chore, Gavin _ because that just sets Gavin off, just makes him try and prove with half-assed arguments the complete opposite of those statements. So Nines says, “You’re welcome,” and moves on.

His partner deserves more than that, however.

The introductory scene of Mia having tea with her grandmother plays out on screen, but he’s paying the barest of attentions to it. “And,” Gavin starts, picking conversation back up quite a minute later, “I’m sorry.”

A red light, quick, almost unnoticeable between his glances. “Don’t be,” Nines says. Sincere, unwavering.

“No, Nines, I—”

“Gavin.”

Gavin stills out of habit, shifts on the old sunken cushion of his couch, can’t keep his gaze on one single point of the room. Mostly on his partner, jumping between his eyes and down his face and to his hands in his lap and away to the coffee table before coming back to the start. He says, “You say that a lot.”

“Your name?”

He shakes his head, it’s unimportant, it’s not what he wanted to talk about, to say, why did he even say that? Ignores the question, moves on.

“You were right” —and he ignores the slight surprised look, as well— “to… step past my boundaries, as you put it. I…” he swallows nothing, just to stall. “I think I, uh, needed the help.”

Nines must see how much it takes him to say such. “You know I am here for you as long as you need me.”

For as long as he needs him. Fuck, Gavin can’t even see a future without him—

_ Fuck. _ His partner deserves more.

He can feel eyes on him still, looks over and frowns a silent question.

Nines says, “Tell me one thing,” and Gavin doubts, says, “Okay?”

“What would you even have to be sorry for?”

And there is so much he could say to that, it’s almost hilarious that Nines would even ask. Caught off guard his mind pulls up images and thoughts he idles over constantly, for reasons only sensible to the part of himself that he hates, and that hates him back. Gavin could detail out everything, could watch the dawn creep over them and continue listing his woes, but it’s an easier feat to summarize.

“I _ suck,_” he says suddenly, harshly, and believes it all. “I am… the worst person I know.”

“Gavin.”

“No, really, Nines, why do you willingly spend your time with me?”

Immediately, “I enjoy your company.” It doesn’t help.

_ “How?” _

Nines takes a second, not out of hesitation he knows, the look of that is much different than this now. He looks almost distraught, or sympathetic, and says nearly too low for Gavin to hear, in a tone that suggests he’s been sitting on this for a long while, “I wish you could see yourself how I see you.”

Out before he can catch it, before he can bite down and choke himself with it. “How do you see me?” Broken voice, quiet in the back of his throat, lowered eyes. Hiding from an answer.

Not sure he wants to hear the truth.

Nines says nothing in reply, and Gavin panics for a moment too brief to count that he’s done something _ wrong, _ inevitably, until. Until the dialogue of the movie is suddenly cut off by another, different and familiar, and Gavin blinks up at the television to find… himself. Himself, across the table in a booth with red upholstery and a half-empty glass of something bright blue and certainly alcoholic in front of him, waving his hands around as he speaks and laughs way too loud. A video, a _ memory _ recorded automatically, of course. Which means—

“This is how I see you,” Nines says, and he laughs light around a smile small. “Very literally, but…” a tilt of his head, a meeting of unwavering stares, “I want you to understand.”

And he must be picking and choosing what to broadcast, or he just has these memories stored separate from the rest, a personal bookmark—the thought of which calls a flush up into his cheeks—for they are only short clips, stitched together to form something Gavin has never witnessed from the outside.

Him, walking backward ahead of Nines on a city street he recognizes as the one two blocks down that the old bakery is on, and, yes, he has one of their bags in his hand (and they haven’t been there together in _ months_), saying, “Okay, but realistically you can _ not _ prove that ghosts don’t exist, alright? Sorry but until I see some hard facts, nah, that place is totally haunted.” Him, sitting in the passenger seat of a station car, the dark of the night clueing him in to the context, a stakeout of which one he isn’t sure. He’s staring down at his phone screen, the only illumination, highlighting the grin he tries to hide behind biting his thumb nail. He glances over at the lens, at _ Nines, _ and says muffled around his hand, “God I hate you, that was so dumb,” and laughs quick and high. Him, curled up on this same couch underneath the throw blanket that’s currently in the wash, completely enthralled by whatever he’s watching on the screen, colors shifting over his face and his thumb nail back between his teeth (the other one than before, and Gavin faintly wonders when that became a habit). He doesn’t even realize he’s being watched, guarded over, not even when he jumps and turns to look at Nines with a hand curved around his eyes to block the screen, saying around an adrenaline-fueled laugh, “Okay, that one scared me, holy shit did you see that?”

Him, over and over again, at the most mundane of times. In the break room at the precinct trying to reach the top shelf mug and lightheartedly bumping against Nines’ shoulder when his partner grabs it for him. Leaning up against the brick wall of an early morning cafe and physically brightening when he catches sight of Nines heading to meet him, already chatting away about inconsequential nonsense. Slouched forward atop his kitchen table, chin pillowed on crossed arms with case files completely scattered around him during an obvious late night, full on pursed-lip-pouting when Nines, rare in these clips and odd to hear from the android’s perspective, mentions they just have one hour to go. Gavin in the memory stretches back and keens out an involuntary noise along with the relief that he’s honestly embarrassed to hear himself make, but then points up at Nines with a grin and an empty threat to put him into stasis.

There might be a trend, he sees. Notices his smile, his laugh, his absolute fucking happiness in every one. None of it faked, none of it strained, all of it pure and easy and so natural that he’s almost afraid of it.

Gavin doesn’t realize he’s crying until he can’t make out the shapes on the screen, just images blurred with light and color, just hearing himself and how _ obvious _ he is.

He’s silent with it, to start. Blinks hard into a squint and feels tears track down his face, throat tight and he swallows against his stupid dry mouth. Short, shallow breaths through his nose and he tries to quell the reactionary expression of that ugly saddened frown, lips trembling to form it.

But then the image changes again and his vision is cleared enough to watch himself from _ today. _ The immediate juxtaposition from his normal talkative and unapologetically loud self into the still, quiet, impassive drag of right now, of Nines’ first visit and Gavin’s complete refusal to even turn and face him, is what finally overwhelms him.

Overwhelms him into a pitifully pitched cry that continues without pause into a full blown outburst of disbelief, and _ god _ he’s so— he’s such a fucking— why the fuck is he _ crying _ over this?

“Gavin, what’s—?”

He startles, forgets that Nines has been here too, and _jesus_ what an impression he makes. “Ah, no, just,” he doesn’t finish, shakes his head and can’t say anything else, throat so thick with it.

He might be hyperventilating, breaths coming in these short and strung gasps around each sob, shoulders jumping when he reaches up to cover his face and mouth and eyes, and it’s disgusting. Fat, warm tears flow unbidden and unburdened, a release impossible to stop now that the dam has broke, has been torn down by a persistently doting android and his shitty POV home videos. Any words he attempts to form end up harsh in an inhale, lost to his distress. A distress that has no discernible cause, a distress that just is, for the sake of being so.

No. A distress fueled by an overflow of emotions too many to name, and not knowing what to do with them all.

Gavin doesn’t flinch at the hands at his wrists, lets his palms be pulled down away from his wet mess of a face and swallows anything he wants to say when he opens his eyes to his partner’s distraught expression. In an impulse that asks permission only after he’s moved, Gavin reaches out and <strike>pathetically</strike> <strike>plaintively</strike> cloyingly draws Nines closer to him, fists fingers into thick cotton and presses his face into Nines’ chest. Still wanting to hide, an ugly wince at his own lack of composure. Slowly, it seems, he feels arms around him, up under his own with strong steady safe hands at his spine. Comforting silently, and Gavin almost sighs at the relief of contact, not realizing how much he’s yearned for, for _something._

For this.

Simply.

This.

“Do you understand now?” Nines murmurs, and he hiccups at how close his voice is, how low, soft, earnest it is. How _ sad. _ “I didn’t mean to cause you any grief.”

“No.” Gavin denies that, lifts his head into that inch of space. He breathes easier here. “You— You didn’t, I’m just— This is just” —a shaky, shuddering sigh— “a lot.”

“You don’t believe you deserve my concern, even after all the times I repeat just how much you’re worth to me,” Nines says, and that sounds familiar.

“You said that.”

“Hm?”

Gavin clears his throat, leans back slightly. Unclenches his hands around Nines’ shirt and feels a warmth in his face at the state of himself, at the arms still holding him all together. “You said that, before. Earlier today, I mean.”

“Yes… You ignored me then,” Nines says. “Do you hear me now?”

An impossibility to voice his reply, stuck in his lungs, so Gavin nods. Nods and knows there’s nothing he can do that will scare Nines off, nothing at all. His reasoning backing the way he reaches for his partner once more, wraps his own arms around him in reciprocation, up around his neck and dips his face into the shoulder there.

Nines tightens his hold and Gavin feels a touch to his temple, a soft press of lips to the skin right at his hairline, not at all quick. Lingering. Gavin leans into it, sniffles away the last of his tears, eyes drying in the dark.

“Can we… can we finish the movie?”

He doesn’t feel breath from the laugh at his skin, but he doesn’t want to. Nines says, “Of course.”

So they do. Loosen their holds only enough to settle against the back of the couch, and Gavin is no longer jittery and anxious about the distance. Lack thereof. He’s calmer, when the television blinks back to where they left off, more sure of himself. Curious, he cranes his neck to check on Nines’ LED. It’s back to blue, an extra solace. Nines grabs his hand in reaction to the look, keeping his own eyes on the film, and twines their fingers together atop Gavin’s thigh, right above the bruise no longer hiding under the hem of his shorts.

Gavin lays his head back to his chest, not wanting to show his face, his tiny, trying grin.

“Can you… can you stay tonight?”

He feels another kiss at his temple, a start and a promise. Nines says, “Of course.”

Gavin believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> well if you got here to the end just know i'd probably die for you, thanks for supporting me by taking time to read this jaunt
> 
> also not related AT ALL but i'm not on social media and need somewhere to vent but i am an adult (not fully passing) male who got called 'little girl' by an old white man today and i am l i v i d
> 
> Edit 06-12-20: Added this to my profile, but adding it to my fics as well. I am free to be a beta reader for anyone who needs one. If you’re interested, email me! dylark9@gmail.com


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